Disclaimer: Digimon Adventure, Digimon Adventure 02 and Digimon: Tamers belong to Bandai and Takato's Light is a story idea belonging to creepingshadow. I merely adopted the story and am currently writing it for him.
Takato's Light
Author's Afterword
Hey folks. It's been a wonderful last 3 years writing this fan fiction, and this story has seen some wonderful development since its initial inception. Fellow author creepingshadow originally approached me three years ago with a request to write a TakatoxHikari cross over fiction. I was skeptical at first writing the story because I had no experience writing a romance and wasn't very fond of too many high school romance dramas out there so to be approached to write one was a little surprising.
Outlining The Story
Nevertheless, I set out right away to outline a story that I could write. At the time, I was watching an anime known as Code Geass and a lot of my ideas started to come off of that. Specifically, the parts about high school romance and slice of life stuff. To be honest though, this is a digimon story. You can't have a digimon story without digimon and that became something of a problem, trying to write a high school romance without detracting too far from the 'saving the world' nature of the DIGIMON franchise.
I hit a bit of writer's block with the plot after the reunion/picnic story arc. I tried to figure out where to go after that but couldn't figure out what to do, so I opted to write the story right away and worry about what to do next when I got to that point. What do you know? I got to the reunion sub plot with no clue what to do next! Around that time, I started to wing the story with ideas to keep the plot going until I came across a couple of fun games known as Dante's Inferno and Dissidia: Final Fantasy. I looked more into the poem known as the Divine Comedy, which Dante's Inferno was based off. After playing those games, I started to know the direction I wanted to take Takato's Light. The rest is history.
Abandoned Plot Lines
There were several sub plots I initially began but never fully followed due to time inconveniences or other factors. Some are more obvious than others, such as the Koushiro's troubles with his college project and a potential romance between Koushiro and Taichi's room mate. I abandoned the former because of time constraints and the latter because I'm not really big on pairings between main characters and original characters. Another sub plot I abandoned was the cause of Taichi's personality changes and their relationship to Sora and Yamato. This time, I abandoned it because I was already invested in a love triangle between Takato, Jeri, and Hikari. I wasn't sure I could afford to be bogged down by another love triangle, when the first was complicated to write about.
One abandoned plot I was really sad I could never get around to was a relationship between Taichi and a female OC loosely based off of Kino from the novel series 'Kino's Journey'. I abandoned this plot for a variety of reasons: first it would detract from the main relationship between Takato and Hikari. Second, it would result in a relationship between an OC and an actual character which I am strongly opposed to. Finally, time restraints really bogged down my ability to develop this idea beyond just a concept. These are just some of the plots I discontinued because they would detract from the main story.
I did have one plot I wanted to use a one shot prequel that would tie-in to Takato's Light. It was going to be a Christmas special but time constraints prevented from ever working on it. Maybe one day, I'll get to it but it's been put on hold for the time being so that I could focus on other projects.
Thanks to my Editors
A practice I took with me while writing Oyabun was to ask a friend of mine to edit the stories before I posted them on the site. Initially, I sent the chapters to fellow author creepingshadow. However, there would always be a few days delay between our communications and, over time, it became impractical because the days long delays would often interfere with the update schedule of Takato's Light. To counter this, I immediately recruited a close friend I could trust with ensuring the grammar and maintaining the continuity of the story. Unfortunately, this also became impractical because she left the University so she could study closer to home.
I spent the next several chapters handling all the editing personally for each chapter until I could find another editor. Around this time, i ran into an old friend I hadn't seen in a while who agreed to edit Takato's Light and my other fanfiction for me. She stuck with me for the rest of Takato's Light and I've been grateful to her for helping me since. To my editors, past and present, thank you.
Music Playlist
While I was writing the story, I had a secret music playlist I listened to which help me stay focused whenever writing the story. As with all of my fanfictions, I tried to pick a specific song that would act as a theme I would listen to every time I started another chapter. There were a lot of songs I listed to at the time, but I eventually settled on 'World End' from Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion R2 because I was really into Code Geass at the time and I felt the lyrics of the song fit the nature of the story. And, yes, I do have a playlist that I listen to when writing Oyabun. With Takato's Light done, I no longer have any need to keep this playlist to myself. So, for the first time, I would like to share this playlist with you dear readers:
'World End' - Flow - Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion R2 Opening Theme - 3:48 (Used for Every Chapter)
'Lazy Afternoons' - Yoko Shimomura - Kingdom Hearts II Soundtrack - 1:40 (Used for Chapters 1-3, 6-7, 9-11)
'Sinister Sundown' - Yoko Shimomura - Kingdom Hearts II Soundtrack - 1:14 (Used for Chapters 4-5, 8)
'Night of Fate' - Yoko Shimomura - Kingdom Hearts Soundtrack - 2:07 (Used for Chapters 12-13)
'The Promised Land' - Nobuo Uematsu - Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children Soundtrack - 2:52 (Used for Chapter 14 - First Part)
'Scherzo di Notte' - Yoko Shimomura - Kingdom Hearts Soundtrack - 1:49 - (Used for Chapter 14 - Beelzebumon Fight)
'Destiny's Force' - Yoko Shimomura - Kingdom Hearts Soundtrack - 2:50 - (Used for Chapter 15)
'Heavy Resistance' - Joris De Man - Killzone 2 Soundtrack - 1:33 - (Used for Chapter 17-18)
'Donasdogama Micma' - Garry Schyman - Dante's Inferno Soundtrack - 1:51 - (Used for Chapter 19 - First Part)
'Call to Arms' - Gerard Marino - God of War III Soundtrack - 2:41 - (Used for CHapter 20 - First Part)
'Fighting Fate' - Masashi Hamauzu - Final Fantasy XIII Soundtrack - 2:27 - (Used for Chapter 20 - Battle with Barbamon)
'Ragnarok' - Masashi Hamauzu - Final Fantasy XIII Soundtrack - 3:46 - (Used for Chapter 21)
'Song of Prayer' - Nobuo Uematsu - Final Fantasy X Soundtrack - 0:43 - (Used for Chapters 22-23)
'The World's Enemy' - Kazuhiko Toyama - Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Soundtrack - 3:26 - (Used for Chapter 22 - Battle with Lucemon)
'Advent: One Winged Angel' - Nobuo Uematsu - Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children Soundtrack - 6:59 - (Used for Chapter 23 - Battle with Lucemon)
'Hikari (Instrumental Version) - Yoko Shimomura - Kingdom Hearts Soundtrack - 1:10 - (Used for Chapter 23 - Second Part)
'Hikari' - Hikaru Utada - Kingdom Hearts Soundtrack - 5:04 - (Used for Epilogue)
The Reason You're All Here
Eight weeks ago, I ended Takato's Light and I'm sure you've all been wondering whether or not I will continue Takato's Light. I could spend forever wasting your time with cheap banter that fills empty space to prolong whether or not I reveal if there is a sequel or not. Or I could just give it all away. Personally, I've never been a very patient man, so I'm just going to share with you my plans for the future of Takato's Light:
The Future of Takato's Light
The great battle between light and dark,
Ends in light's favor for the first time.
For now, light shines upon the worlds real and digital.
But the brighter the light,
The greater the shadow!
The cycle is not yet over.
The boy and his partner,
Endowed with the Creator's power,
Had the strength to slay me.
My body is gone,
But my will survives!
The creator's greatest punishment,
Will also be the creator's greatest undoing!
Twice I've underestimated them.
They slew the King in the last cycle,
and myself in this cycle.
I cannot herald the next cycle,
So I will bide my time!
I may have lost my body,
But I saved two for my own purposes, a human and a digimon!
Conquest! War! Famine! and Death!
Together, we will herald the end of all things!
The end has begun!
If you haven't figured it out by now: yes, there will be a sequel. Come back in 12 weeks on August 12th for the first chapter of Takato's Light 2: Hikari's Hazard.